There was a great deal of opposition to a full-fledged invasion, just not on mainstream television networks. I personally remember reading about a lot of more peaceful alternatives that ranged from not actually invading, to targeting Osama directly, to accepting offers by the Taliban to hand Bin Laden over to an international tribunal or neutral third-party country.
God knows how serious the last offer would have been (perhaps it was a stalling tactic), but it would have been easier to find the man that way - assuming locating Bin Laden was the actual point behind the invasion. Regardless of how things play out now, claiming there were not alternatives to invasion only excuses the poor judgment of those who backed the war in the first place. These people need to be kept as far from government as humanly possible, not excused for the "inevitability" of the Michael Bay approach to foreign policy.
There was a great deal of opposition to a full-fledged invasion, just not on mainstream television networks. I personally remember reading about a lot of more peaceful alternatives that ranged from not actually invading, to targeting Osama directly, to accepting offers by the Taliban to hand Bin Laden over to an international tribunal or neutral third-party country.
God knows how serious the last offer would have been (perhaps it was a stalling tactic), but it would have been easier to find the man that way - assuming locating Bin Laden was the actual point behind the invasion. Regardless of how things play out now, claiming there were not alternatives to invasion only excuses the poor judgment of those who backed the war in the first place. These people need to be kept as far from government as humanly possible, not excused for the "inevitability" of the Michael Bay approach to foreign policy.